Spouses and friends are the most annoying drivers

Holiday shopping could prove to be especially stressful for those who drive with spouses and friends. Over one-third of people name their spouses as “the most annoying driver,” and almost one-quarter point to friends.

Insure.com’s new survey asked 2,000 licensed drivers about annoying drivers and their most irritating habits.

Results: Who is the most annoying driver?

My spouse: 36 percent

A friend: 22 percent

My mother: 16 percent

My father: 9 percent

Other: 8 percent

My teen son: 5 percent

My teen daughter: 4 percent

Among write-in choices for “other,” “my sister” had the most write-in votes, garnering more than 10 percent of the “other” choices.

While friends are as guilty as anyone else of speeding and following others too closely, passengers also say friends are often cutting off other drivers, fiddling with the radio/CD player, talking on the cellphone while driving, failing to signal and looking at passengers rather than the road while talking. All of these distractions can lead to accidents and impact car insurance rates.

So what’s a passenger to do? Most comment or yell, but a good number suffer in silence.

How do you react to annoying driving?

I comment: 42 percent

I don’t say a word: 20 percent

I grab the door handle or dashboard: 16 percent

I yell: 11 percent

I make faces or noises: 9 percent

Other: 2 percent

Those who chose “other” had developed individual strategies for coping with bad driving, including:

I crawl in the back so I can’t see

I look out the side window

I’ve given up

Pray

Close my eyes

For those gearing up for Black Friday shopping, the best bet may be to find a teen driver and enjoy the ride.

Below, see what happens when Kristin Wong stops people on the street to ask, "Who's the most annoying driver?"

Methodology

Insure.com surveyed 2,000 licensed drivers age 18 and older. Respondents were split evenly between males and females and distributed across age groups according to Census data on age distribution. The online-panel survey was fielded in October 2013.